Gandhi Aide Quits Over Spy Scandal

Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s principal secretary resigned Saturday amid new revelations in an expanding defense-secrets espionage scandal involving unnamed foreign countries.

The secretary, P.C. Alexander, a former U.N. official who also served as senior adviser and secretary to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was not charged in the case, which, according to Indian news agencies, has resulted in at least nine arrests. However, Alexander, 64, considered to be one of the most influential members of the Gandhi staff, resigned on “moral grounds” after the arrest of his top assistant Friday.

Among those arrested and charged under the Indian Official Secrets Act were two New Delhi businessmen and at least seven other top government bureaucrats, including one member of the office of Indian President Zail Singh and two undersecretaries from the Ministry of Defense.

Government investigators reportedly also confiscated a large number of classified defense-related documents from the homes and automobiles of those charged.

“They (the alleged spies) made a photocopy of almost all the important files in the prime minister’s (office) and Defense Ministry secretariat,” the Press Trust of India reported, quoting unnamed sources.

The documents were “highly classified and dealt with armament deals, minutes of Cabinet meetings on important issues like Punjab and Assam problems and the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka,” the news agency said. Punjab and Assam states have been troubled by religious and ethnic violence.

Judging from the high level of the arrests made and the solemnity that has accompanied the matter since it was first publicly announced by Gandhi in a statement to Parliament on Friday, the case appeared to be one of the biggest intelligence scandals in the 37-year history of independent India.

India, with the world’s fourth largest army and one of the world’s most sophisticated military systems, receives most of its imported arms from the Soviet Union.

Its arsenal includes T-72 tanks, and MIG-29 high-performance fighter-bombers have been promised by the Soviet Union for delivery soon, even before they are deployed in Warsaw Pact countries. The MIG-29 is considered to rival the American F-16, which the United States has supplied to Pakistan, India’s traditional military enemy.

Details of the spy ring, including specifically which foreign powers might be involved, remained unreported, although Indian Communist Party leaders were quick to blame the United States.

E.M.S. Namboodiripad, secretary general of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, charged that the spy ring was part of an “American conspiracy.” Namboodiripad said he was informed of the arrests by the prime minister.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi declined comment, saying U.S. policy is not to speak on espionage cases, whether or not the United States is involved.

Last year, the U.S. Embassy here was drawn into an espionage scandal when Indian investigators accused four Indians, including two senior retired military officers, of spying for CIA officers stationed at the embassy under diplomatic cover.

Several U.S. diplomats were declared persona non grata and ordered out of the country in the Larkins case, so called because retired Indian army Maj. Gen. Frank Larkins and his brother, retired Deputy Air Marshal Kenneth Larkins, were charged in the case, which is currently under trial.